Crunchyroll #40: Elizabeth Onigiri inspired by “Gintama”

Everyone loves a good mystery every now and then, and my mystery of choice happens to be Elizabeth, the mysterious companion to Katsura (Zura? Katsu?). She is a faintly bird-like creature (with hairy legs) with a human inside her (uhhhhhh) who might be the director of the anime, but no one is really sure. If you’re incredibly confused, don’t worry- so is everyone else, including most of the characters of the show.

This week’s recipe isn’t really based on anything directly from the anime- Elizabeth doesn’t make a habit of eating onigiri, and there aren’t any jokes that involve her and onigiri or anything like that, but one day I was staring at Elizabeth’s face (as you do) and I thought to myself, ‘You know what would be great??? If Elizabeth’s face was ON an ONIGIRI.’ And the more I thought about it, the more I saw the connections.

What’s white? Rice. Who else is white? Elizabeth. What do Japanese mothers love? Making onigiri for their children’s bentos (as evidenced by my host moms). What do they also love? Elizabeth (Probably? This might be a stretch.) What sometimes has a mystery inside? Onigiri. What DEFINITELY has a mystery inside? Elizabeth. You see all these connections?!?!

The video below shows you how to decorate the onigiri, which I think is the hardest part of this relatively simple recipe. If you can cut out nori and cheese into circular shapes, you’ve basically got this down. I used a salmon dip to fill my onigiri, which was really yummy, and, for me, was just a quick in-store purchase. However, you can fill these things with whatever you want. Traditional fillings include seaweed, pickled plum, meat, karaage, fish, or fish mixed with mayo. However, since these are supposed to be mystery fillings, you can pick a mixture of yummy and weird things to put inside and have fun making your friends guess what they’re eating. This sounds vaguely like a youtube challenge video. Anyway, the possibilities are endless! (Just like Gintama *ba-dum tissshhhh*)

Watch the video below for decorating instructions!

Ingredients:

cooked white rice

filling of choice

1 white cheese slice

1 yellow cheese slice

sheet of nori

a selection of objects you can use as a guide for a circle/ a hole punch

optionally, an onigiri mold

To Make:

1. Get your face features ready first- cut out the whites of the eyes, nori circles to make the rim of the eye, pupils, and eyelashes. Then, make a beak using the yellow cheese and add a little line horizontally through it to make the beak separation line.

2. Prepare onigiri. Fill with filling of choice.

3. Decorate- place eyes and beak on. Use a toothpick to maneuver the eyelashes into place.

4. And now it’s done!!! 😀

I hope you enjoyed this post! Check in next week for another recipe. To check out more anime food recipes, visit my blog for more anime and manga themed food. If you have any questions or comments, leave them below! I recently got a twitter, so you can follow me at @yumpenguinsnack if you would like, and DEFINITELY feel free to send me food requests! My tumblr is yumpenguinsnacks.tumblr.com. Find me on Youtube for more video tutorials! Enjoy the food, and if you decide to recreate this dish, show me pics! 😀